Representing consumption of digital content

• US 9,715,482 B1
• Filed: 06/27/2012
• Issued: 07/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bjorkegren, Michael Erik Carl
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mrabi, Hassan
• Application Number:
  US13/534,921
• Time in Patent Office: 1,854 Days
• Field of Search: 715201, 715859, 715860, 715857, 715862, 715273
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/013 Eye tracking input arrangements G06F3/015 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04855 Interaction with scrollbars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

In some implementations, a user may use an electronic device to consume content of a content item in a non-linear or noncontiguous manner. The electronic device may display a consumption representation in connection with the content item. The consumption representation may represent locations of portions of content of the content item that have been consumed. In addition, the electronic device may track the consumption of the content using various techniques for determining whether a particular portion of content is likely to have been consumed. In some examples, the consumption representation may be displayed with an indicator to indicate the presence of embedded content that may be provided with certain content items. The indicator of embedded content may further indicate information such as a location, a content type, and/or a consumption status of the embedded content.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media maintaining instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving supplemental information associated with a content item that includes a plurality of pages, the supplemental information identifying a plurality of terms related to the content item;

presenting content of the content item on a display of an electronic device;

determining that pages of the content item have been consumed using the electronic device;

displaying a consumption representation, the consumption representation including a graphic element comprising a bar that represents at least a part of the content item;

visually distinguishing a first portion and a second portion of the consumption representation based, at least in part, on the determining that the pages of the content item have been consumed using the electronic device, wherein the first portion is noncontiguous from the second portion;

displaying an indicator with the consumption representation, the indicator indicating a location in the content item of embedded content, wherein the indicator visually represents a type of the embedded data at the location in the content item;

receiving a selection of at least one term of the plurality of terms related to the content item; and

displaying, with the consumption representation, a visual representation of a location in the content item of at least one page of the content item associated with the at least one term.

2. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the first portion of the consumption representation indicates a location of a page of the pages that has been consumed.

3. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the plurality of terms related to the content item include at least one of:

a character mentioned in the content item;

a person mentioned in the content item;

a place mentioned in the content item;

a thing mentioned in the content item;

an interaction between characters in the content item;

an organization or group mentioned in the content item;

a relationship between characters in the content item;

a theme in the content item;

a scene in the content item;

an event mentioned in the content item;

a phrase used in the content item;

a topic mentioned in the content item;

a citation provided in the content item;

or

a time period associated with the content item.

4. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the type of the embedded data includes at least one of:

video content, audio content, or linked content.

5. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, the operations further comprising:

determining that at least a page of the plurality of pages of the content item has been accessed using the electronic device, and

visually distinguishing a third portion of the consumption representation that represents the page of the content item from a forth portion of the consumption representation that represents at least one other page of the content item.

6. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, the operations further comprising:

determining that at least a page of the plurality of pages of the content item that has been displayed using the electronic device for a threshold period of time, and

visually distinguishing a third portion of the consumption representation that represents the page of the content item from a fourth portion of the consumption representation that represents at least one other page of the content item.

7. A method comprising:

under control of one or more processors configured with executable instructions,

displaying a representation of a content item;

determining that portions of the content item have been consumed using an electronic device;

visually distinguishing a first portion that is noncontiguous with a second portion of the representation; and

displaying an indicator with the representation, the indicator indicating a location in the content item of embedded content, wherein the indicator visually represents a type of the embedded data at the location in the content item.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the visually distinguishing further comprises visually distinguishing the first portion of the representation in a manner different from visually distinguishing the second portion of the representation to indicate that content corresponding to the first portion was consumed at least one of more frequently or for a greater length of time than content corresponding to the second portion.

9. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein:

the representation comprises a bar representative of the content item.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein at least the first portion is located at a position on the bar that is proportional to a location of a corresponding page that has been consumed in the content item between a first page of the content item and a last page of the content item.

11. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein at least the first portion is located at a position on the bar that is proportional to a location of elapsed play time at which a consumed portion of the content item has been played out of a total play time of the content item.

12. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the type of the embedded data includes at least one of:

video content, audio content, or linked content.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the indicator further indicates a consumption status of the at least one of the video content, the audio content, or the linked content.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the consumption status is indicated by at least one of:

one or more bars;

a pie chart;

a consumption representation, within the representation, wherein the consumption representation is able to represent noncontiguous consumption of the content corresponding to the indicator;

a numeric percentage;

or

an icon indicating completion of consumption of the content corresponding to the indicator.

15. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising displaying, with the representation, an indicator of a location in the content item of at least one of:

content that has been flagged to be corrected, updated or removed;

content that is missing;

content that is to be completed;

content that has been annotated;

content that has been highlighted;

content that is trending on one or more social networks;

or

one or more chapter breaks.

16. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising sending, over a network, consumption information indicating the portions of the content item during presentation of the content item.

17. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the electronic device comprises a first electronic device, and the representation of the content item is displayed on the first electronic device, the method further comprising:

receiving, over a network, consumption information indicating an additional portion of the content item that has been consumed during presentation of the content item on a second electronic device; and

visually distinguishing, on the first electronic device, a portion of the representation corresponding to the additional portion of the content item.

18. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising:

receiving a selection of the first portion of the representation; and

displaying information identifying a range of content of the content item corresponding to the first portion.

19. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein:

at least a portion of the content item is scrollable content having an associated scrollbar; and

the representation is at least one of;

located adjacent to the scrollbar;

or

overlaid on the scrollbar.

20. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein:

the content item comprises at least one page that includes a plurality of text items and a plurality of media items, the plurality of media items including at least one of video or audio items;

the first portion of the representation corresponds to one of the text items; and

the second portion of the representation corresponds to one of the media items.

21. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein:

the content item comprises at least a first page and a second page, the first portion including the first page and the second portion including the second page;

the representation includes at least a first thumbnail image corresponding to the first portion and a second thumbnail image corresponding to the second portion; and

the visually distinguishing the first portion that is noncontiguous with the second portion of the representation comprises visually distinguishing the first thumbnail image corresponding to the first portion of the content item and visually distinguishing the second thumbnail image corresponding to the second portion of the content item.

22. A device comprising:

a display;

one or more processors;

one or more non-transitory computer-readable media; and

one or more modules maintained on the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media and executed by the one or more processors to present a visual representation that represents consumption of content of a content item using the device, the visual representation including;

a bar representative of the content item;

a first visually distinguished portion of the bar at a first location proportional to a location of a first page of content in the content item, the first page of content having been determined to have been consumed using at least one of the device or another device;

a second visually distinguished portion of the bar located at a second location proportional to a location of a second page of content in the content item, the second page of content having been determined to have been consumed using at least one of the device or the another device, wherein the first visually distinguished portion of the bar is separate from the second visually distinguished portion of the bar; and

an indicator, the indicator indicating a location in the content item of embedded content, wherein the indicator visually represents a type of the embedded data at the location in the content item.

23. The device as recited in claim 22, wherein the one or more modules determine that at least one of the first page of content or the second page of content has been consumed based at least in part on at least one of:

an amount of time that the at least one of the first page of content or the second page of content is presented on the device;

a detected gaze of a user;

a location of a currently presented page of content;

or

a furthest location at which content has been presented.

24. The device as recited in claim 22, at least one of:

video content, audio content, or linked content.

25. The device as recited in claim 22, wherein the first visually distinguished portion of the bar is visually distinguished from the second visually distinguished portion of the bar to indicate that the content corresponding to the first visually distinguished portion was consumed at least one of more frequently or for a greater length of time than the content corresponding to the second visually distinguished portion.

26. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media maintaining instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

determining that a first page and a second page of a content item have been consumed using an electronic device;

displaying a consumption representation to visually distinguish a first location in the electronic book of the first page and a second location in the electronic book of the second page that have been consumed using the electronic device from an additional location in the electronic book of one or more additional pages; and

displaying, with the consumption representation, an indicator of a third location in the electronic book of embedded content, wherein the indicator visually represents a type of the embedded data at the third location in the electronic book.

27. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 26, wherein the type of the embedded data includes at least one of:

video content, audio content, or linked content.